Edinburgh Bicycle Co-operative saves £20,000 per year with a cloud WMS

The challenge

Bicycle and cycling equipment retailer, Edinburgh Bicycle Co-operative (EBC) had been using the WMS module of its ERP system to manage its warehouse.

Due to the system's limited functionality, the operation experienced problems in finding and identifying stock, which were magnified by the company's growth.

EBC's Warehouse Manager, Bill Rennie said: "We'd just about managed to muddle along with the ERP WMS when we had one store and a small e-commerce operation but, as the business grew, and grew fast, it became obvious that this wasn't sustainable.

"While we generally managed to meet our service level commitments, this involved huge amounts of unnecessary work which was, in turn, costing us dear in both regular labour and overtime."

The solution

To address these problems, EBC made the decision to look for a best-of-breed warehouse management system, conducting a thorough review of possible solutions.

Bill Rennie said: "When we first came across SnapFulfil, what they offered seemed too good to be true but once we spent some time with them, it was clear that both their system and their No Capex model were perfect for us. Our IT guys were also impressed with how straightforward the integration with our ERP was and we were satisfied that there was nothing we needed that SnapFulfil couldn't do."

Benefits

Almost immediately following the implementation of SnapFulfil, EBC found that they were able to complete the daily workload with a man less than before and also eliminate much of the overtime burden on the business, equating to an estimated cost saving of circa £20,000 per year.

SnapFulfil also allows EBC to accurately monitor individual work rates which has proven to be a highly effective workforce management and training tool.

Bill Rennie said: "SnapFulfil not only allows us to identify poor individual performance but also helps us to understand the reasons behind it.

"This is especially important in our business – cycling is increasingly fashion-led which means that our stock profile can change quite radically from season to season. SnapFulfil shows us the impact of this on our performance and helps us to identify where we need to make changes in order to maintain our performance."

 

download-the-ebc-case-study

  • EBC action shot